Somewhere In-between

Journal

I am lost in my life. There is a feeling that my toes just skim the surface of my reality. I’m in some kind of limbo. Here in the last weeks in our forest home, the last weeks with my love, the last weeks before some great wide expanse of unknown. I wish I had some certainty, a home we could call our own instead of a handful of maybes. I should be used to it by now, but this time Alba has school and our belongings don’t just fit into a few suitcases anymore.

I remember when my grief came in waves so close together I could barely catch my breath. They’re much further apart now, but when they come every wall I’ve built against the pain is torn down instantly. The injustice of it all makes me want to kick and scream like a child, I lost my only brother and now I mourn every single day of the future I will never have with him.

Heartbreak comes in waves too. Mostly I live in a cocoon of softness, my little family is still my little family. Then I look down at my hand in Bee’s hand and I realise the time is coming where his body won’t feel like an extension of my own any more. Where I won’t nap to the sound of Alba and Bee playing. Where I will have to face all my challenges alone again. I pray he will stay around, but how can I know? He would be forever on the road if he could and I don’t blame him.

He says things that hurt me sometimes. He says this life is too quiet for him, but this is my life. I know it’s quiet. The school drop offs and grocery runs and tidying up and bedtime routines. But it is its own little adventure in itself, the very adventure I always ached for when I was travelling across the world.

And yet I know he’ll miss it. He helps in Alba’s classroom for fun, he always needs to be there for bedtime stories even when it’s the same book 5 nights in a row and he is almost always by my side.

On nights I cannot sleep I pad through our dark house to Bee’s bedroom. His phone glows in the dark, a podcast left playing as he’s fallen asleep. I nuzzle my head into his neck and I tell him I love him and he tells me he loves me. Sometimes the memories of the beginning fill my mind, all that hope and overwhelming love. I instantly push them out just as I do with memories of my brother.

Mostly he is my best friend and I am his and that is just fine.

☾

I don’t know how I’d manage all my big feelings without my routines. The yoga, the running, the journalling and the meditation. Without these releases my days would be lost to my emotions.

Now that Alba is at school I can work hard. I often write thousands of words in a day. I am running my Patreon, my blog, creating a course and writing a book all simultaneously. It’s the one place in my world where everything feels perfect.

School is pretty wonderful too. Alba’s best friend brings her little treasures and homemade books full of illustrations of ponies and unicorns. Alba is besotted with a boy called Angus who I am sure is trouble and her teacher is so sweet she reminds me of Miss Honey from Matilda.

☾

Laura is directing a film in Sydney and hires me to take stills. For a weekend I’m that girl again, the one with a camera around her neck and the ability to instantly connect to strangers. Being on a set is both slow and exciting. I shoot in tiny pockets of time and wear my heart on my sleeve. The crew becomes a family.

One night I get gelato with Philippe, the lead actor from the film. We’re walking through Newtown and it begins to rain so we throw our arms out to catch the raindrops. The sky is bright purple and pink. We’re both cradling broken hearts but for a few hours we forget.

The freedom and the excitement of the big city reminds me of so many times before. It is a contrast to my settled life at home. But while my father gave up on our family to chase his dreams, and my mother gave up her dreams to take care of our family, I am determined to do both. For me and for Alba.

☾

We’re in the car when Bee tells me he’s going to Perth when the lease ends. So far I thought he’d stay around, at least for a while. It hits me like a tidal wave of betrayal. In the pain of the moment the most bitter words form on my tongue, “you’re unbelievably selfish.”

It’s probably the meanest thing I’ve ever said to him. I am being abandoned again and I am defensive. I feel like everything means nothing at all. Like I failed.

I go running, my body is so tight it feels like someone is wringing all the joy from me. It’s hard to breathe. I make myself let go, let myself expand back into me again. Then I can see the stories. Bee doesn’t care about us, I will always be abandoned and love will never be enough.

Most importantly I can see they are just stories. That this is my challenge. It’s like the universe has taken a look at me and said, I think you need another lesson in letting go. Granted, I obviously do. My ego gets so caught up in it all.

So I hug him and I apologise and then I break down again about feeling abandoned and rejected. Face all blotchy and wet and snotty. For a long time things felt so easy that when people asked if it was hard living with Bee I’d mostly shrug and say, “Surprisingly not.” But him leaving felt so far away then, now it’s right around the corner and I’m not sure I’m ready.

☾

My fears are so incessant at night that I cannot find the quiet to sleep. I talk to Georgia one morning. She tells me I can stay with her and that Alba can catch the bus to school with the kids until I can drive and find a home. She’s rescued me so many times she’s like my knight in shining armour. She says, “I know it’s hard and painful but you don’t need him Nirrimi.”

When I talk to my friend Alex about my fears around leaving she says, “Yeah, it’s scary but isn’t it also really exciting?” Slowly I feel that she is right. It is exciting. Who knows what life has in store for me now? Whatever is coming, I am strong and brave enough to handle it. Deep down I can feel that this is all for the very best and I am ready.

Then I’m back in that cocoon, things feel easy and I forget that they are ever hard. I know these cycles of strength and weakness will keep on going. Probably until the day I die. And that’s alright because I know it will all be okay, even at my weakest.

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19 love notes

I can really relate to this at a time in my life right now where I feel helpless and lost. But I know things will only get better and I’ll only be stronger from it. Reading this blog entry really warmed my heart and motivated me to stop letting the dark thoughts get to me and be happy. Life is forever changing and we are forever learning. Thankyou, you have such a beautiful soul 🙂

HOLY!! I can’t believe it took me years to realize this, but you and Saoirse Ronan are so similar to me. Your title “somewhere in-between” reminded me of a movie she’s in (The Lovely Bones). Lovely movie.

Much love, Nirrimi! Thank you for blessing us with your thoughts and dreams. I need more people like you in my life.

after reading your recent post all I can think is “as long as you´re with Alba everything will be okay!”.
I have a little daughter myself and the love I feel for her isn´t comparable to anything else. Since she´s in my life I think I´m able to manage even the worst situations, as long as we´re together and she is fine. The rest will turn out very well you will see.
You are so young and talented and wise and strong. (I would have never been when I was your age btw)
. Lots of love, strength and confidence from germany!!! Anna

Hello Nirrimi, years ago I posted on your Facebook page that your posts make me want to live because they are full of life and this still happens today. I see the vulnerability and I feel the pain of sailing through life’s tides. They are intense. I hope that at the moment you read this you find yourself in lots of love, self-assurance, good friends and the joy of being gifted with life and all it has to offer – both good and bad – because that’s what it’s all about: adding tiny pieces until until we’re made complete and full. You are a beautiful soul!
Keep fighting the good fight.

Hi Nirrimi,
I can feel you pain.
I know how much you love Bee. Letting go of him must be the hardest thing ever. I am sorry for your brother also…
I saw your father on Netflix the other day. He looks like a funny man. I had no idea he went 10 years on a boat ?
Anyways,
Sending good vibes ❤️
Carling

Beautiful Nirrimi,
Like you and many your readers now, I feel the same. I feel lost in my lifestory. Being 25, I am unemployed for 5th month, I decided to brake up with boyfriend after almost 5 years of long distance relationship, even if I still love him so much. Sometimes I feel so desperate, I cry now almost every evening. I look at the stars and the moon and cry, pray, whisper to the universe, ‘please, help, I have no idea where to go’. Praying to the sky, to the stars, to beauty of this world saves me. Breathing deeply saves me. Believing saves me. I try to trust my path as much as I can do. To let universe lead me through all this pain.
I want to encourage you so much Nirrimi. You help me with your words everytime I need support. You make me feel that everything will be wonderful in our lives. I want to hug you so much now. Believe me or not, but I even saw you in my dream last night. Don’t remember the details, but I remember your beautiful face. I love you precious girl. I am with you in my thoughts.
p.s. And to share something positive and good, I leave you this music with magical video on youtube – “Small Black – No Stranger”. I wish something so wonderful happen to you soon 😉

Thank you for sharing your life. It inspires so many people. I believe your friend is right. My ex and I were lovers for 3 years and best friends for a little while after it was over. When he left I remember being devistated; like the tiniest breath could knock me over. But looking back, the year we broke up was one of the most exciting I’d ever had because the possibilities of life became endless, and they do come knocking! Keep strong 🙂

Your posts always remind me that everything will be ok and that we have to trust the universe
when I start falling back into old ego-focussed negative thinking habits. Your wise attitude towards difficult times is so inspiring <3

I saw my own life in your two first sentences: “I am lost in my life. There is a feeling that my toes just skim the surface of my reality.”
That is exactly how I feel.
I wake up every morning and I feel like I don’t exist. I have a really hard time grasping what is real because I live constantly in my mind, in my thoughts.
I’ve been freelancing for over a year as a photographer and illustrator. The first 8 months were fine, but then my boyfriend went away for a long time on a trip and the anxiety that I hadn’t felt for a long time came back. And even when my boyfriend arrived home again my anxiety didn’t disappear. It just swooped ever to my work instead. I suddenly feel so incredibly lonely, I work alone from home so there is no one to talk with. No one so share with.
Sometimes I think about just applying for a normal job instead. But I concidered a “difficult employe” due to my sensitivity; I can’t concentrate in a work environment were they play loud music. And every hip cool creative workplace today pretty much plays music out loud. And if I comment on it people think I’m a problem. If I comment on wanting a work chair that doesn’t mess up my back I’m a problem too.
So I feel like I’m stuck. If I continue freelancing I’ll be unhappy, but if I go to a workplace I’ll be unhappy too. This is my limbo.

Dear Nirrimi!
While sitting somewhere on the oher side of the geographical globe I step in your blog and your words has resonated within me the way I want to share some of my “awakening” inspirations.
What has become my most inner experience is what the great “spiritual teacher” Mooji shares in beautiful words and his presence: “All the ups and downs are grace in different wraappings, sent to refine consciousness. Say thanks to them all”, “Feelings are just visitors, let them come and go”.
“You are the witness of all the happenings”. We are Life itself, and the greatest Joy and love unfolds from that realisation. This is not just words, this is not something temporary, this is not something that can be taken away from us. The ego-mind will come for some time trying to doubt that truth, gradually loosing it’s power so the true Self that was always there can shine through. We ourselves are able to immerse into that introspection, inquire who we are and drop what we are not, just dreaming we are it. Sometimes it’s good to rely on presence of those who already realised that.
I very much advise you to google Mooji or other beautiful beings sitted in the heart (There’s beautifully sitted in heart woman called Gangaji – both strong and culnerable in a way of sharing) and take a while if you can recognize their sharing within You 🙂 It’s not any kind of belief system, it’s not about religion, sect, movement, philosophy. It’s about very direct experience about WHO WE REALLY ARE, the truth that can be put in diferent words, yet the essence is ONE. And this is what underlays every dynamic action that comes and goes, where all the senses are to perceive, where all the emotions may appear and soon pass away. in my expperience the moment of that shift in consciousness is the greatest Joy.

Hi, Nirrimi. I’m from Brazil. I’ve been following your adventures since Alba was Just a Little baby. I really admire you and your job and the woman you are. When you live the mountains, that magical place full of energy and stories, I felt upset. It was so perfect…The life you used to had there. Then, you restart, Stronger, with a lot of new stories and learnings to share. When your brother passes away, I cryed as Simeone of muito family had live us. I don’t know where I want to get with this. I never had a true love; I never left something behind and sometimes, the ansious to discover what am I doing here get me and I have to remember myself to be pacient and calm down. And that I’m not alone. Just breath and Live one day at a moment, you are incredible and are not alone. I ‘m sorry about my english. Hope my words helped you.

Thank you nirrimi for your honesty on every post and being so brave to share it, this one particulary made me cry, , maybe because i’m facing another fear-moment in my life and like you say probably these fears will be with us forever, but you’re friend is right, even in the fearest moments it feels exciting, nobody knows what is coming, so just let yourself flow! Good vibes to your next chapter in life <3

I feel you Nirrimi. You know, life itself is one crazy, wonderful adventure. Fire and joy and everything in between. There is excitement in the unknown. Map out your own path honey, and own it <3 You deserve to. You can. I believe in you xx